Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate

Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate Hearing

Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate (OC-5), initially Committee for Action Research on the Intelligence Community, was "spawned" during a November 1972 Communist Party USA-dominated Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice) gathering. The Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate was an Anti-Intelligence Group that sought to expose federal agents who infiltrated the radical left. The Public Education Project on the Intelligence Community-PEPIC was a "spinoff" of Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate.

Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate was allegedly connected to the assassination of undercover CIA officer Richard Welch in Greece. Former CIA director William Colby stated that the Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate was "at large part, responsible" for the assassination of CIA officer Richard Welch after his identity was exposed in CounterSpy Magazine. The assassination led to the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

CounterSpy Magazine was a magazine organized by the Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate. The magazine's successor was Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB).

History

According to the late Rep. Larry McDonald during a March 26, 1976 hearing on the Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate.

OC-5, in its embryonic form was spawned at a November 1972 gathering of the Communist Party U.S.A. dominated— People's Coalition for Peace and Justice - PCPJ and was known as the Committee for Action Research on the Intelligence Community, or CARIC CARIC then operated from room 523, the DuPont Circle Building , Washington , D.C. 20036 and from P.O. Box 647, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, D.C. 20044 . During the past 3 years , the OC-5 has operated with impunity and has been able to serve as a clearinghouse for the many groups involved in attacking aspects of the information - gathering programs of Federal and local law enforcement agencies..."

Committee for Action Research on the Intelligence Community "was founded and operated by four people, all members of the violence-prone Communist organization the Vietnam Veterans Against the War—VVAW. It was, in fact, an official project of VVAW; those involved were as follows: Perry Douglas Fellwock, also known as Winslow Peck, age 30; Timothy Charles Butz, age 28; K. Barton Osborn and Gary Thomas. Each of the four claim service in some branch of the intelligence community and each has u record of involvement with the radical, Communist-dominated segments of the peace movement.

National Conference on Government Spying

Henry DiSuvero, seated second from right, addressing The National Conference on Government Spying in Chicago, January, 1977. (Photo by Barbara Plog/Liberation News Service)

Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate was cited by Rep. Larry McDonald of Georgia in the congressional record on January 31, 1977 as being on the steering committee of the National Conference on Government Spying NCGS, which was held at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, on January 20-23, 1977. The NCGS was organized by the National Lawyers Guild, which, as Rep. Larry McDonald explained:

"has explicitly stated its support for revolutionary 'armed struggle' and terrorism as in the armed occupation of Wounded Knee and in violent prison riots. The NLG International Committee maintains open liaison with terrorist Marxist "liberation movements" such as the Palestine Liberation Organization. The NLG is a member of the Soviet-controlled International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL): the NLG was formed with the assistance of the Comintern in 1936 and was cited as the "foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its fronts and controlled unions." The NLG now operates as a working coalition of Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA members and supporters, Castroite Communists, Maoist Communists, and various New Left activists."

Steering Committee

The NCGS steering committee consisted of:

• Bob Borosage, Washington, D.C.; NLG activist; codirector of the Center for National Security Studies-CNSS; and trustee of and attorney for the Institute for Policy Studies-IPS.
• Len Cavise, Chicago; NLG.
• Paul Chevigny, New York; NLG speaker and staff attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union; author of "Cops and Rebels" and "Police Power."
• Terry Gilbert, Cleveland.
• Bill Goodman, Detroit; president of the NLG.
• Leonard Grossman, Detroit.
• Lance Haddix, Chicago; NLG.
• Morton Halperin, Washington, D.C.; director of the joint CNSS/ ACLU Project on National Security and Civil Liberties, funded, as are many ACLU and Fund for Peace/CNSS activities, by the Field Foundation.
• David Hamlin, Chicago; Illinois Civil Liberties Union.
• Lennox Hinds, New York; National Conference of Black Lawyers-NCBL; NLG; National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression-NAARPR; and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers-IADL-controlled by the U.S.S.R.
• Robert C. Howard, Chicago; general counsel of the Better Government Association, a tax-exempt "public interest organization that addresses government misconduct through investigation, public education, and legal action."
• Val R. Klink, president of the Chicago NLG chapter, attorney for the Alliance To End Repression-AER--set up by two CPUSA fronts.
• Michael Krinsky, New York; attorney with Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard; attorney for Cuba, the Marxist Allende government of Chile, and the Socialist Workers Party-SWP.
• Ken Lawrence, Jackson, Miss.
• Judy Meade, Washington, D.C.; CNSS.
• Matt Piers, Chicago.
• Ramona Ripston (Mrs. Henry DiSuvero) , Los Angeles; NLG; executive director, ACLU of Southern California; former codirector of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, an identified CPUSA front.
• David Rudovsky, Philadelphia; NLG; staff attorney of the NECLC Philadelphia office; attorney for the Institute for Policy Studies.
• Franklin Siegel, New York; NLG national office staff.
• Howard Simon, Detroit.
• Zoharah Simmons, Philadelphia.
• Richard Soble, Detroit; NLG and Bill Goodman's law partner.
• Syd Stapleton, New York; member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee and national secretary of the SWP's Political Rights Defense Fund PRDF-which raises money and distributes publicity about the SWP's lawsuits against the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
• Margaret Van Houten, Washington, D.C.; formerly with the Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate--OC-5- now coordinator of the OC-5 spinoff, the Public Education Project on the Intelligence Community-PEPIC.
• Margaret "Peggy" Winter, New York; national staff of the political rights fund.

The National Conference on Government Spying was organized from room 815, 33 North Dearborn, Chicago, Ill. 60602, 312/939-2492, with Paul Bigman as information coordinator. In addition to the NLG, those assisting with conference expenses were the ACLU and the Playboy Foundation which commissioned the conference handbook, a more than 225-page manual-$15-entitled "Pleading, Discovery and Pretrial Procedure for Litigation Against Government Spying," whose principal authors are Robert C. Howard and Kathleen M. Crowley, general counsel and staff counsel, respectively. of the Better Government Association, a plaintiff in the suit against the Chicago police intelligence unit, ACLU v. Chicago, Civ. Action 75 C 6295 <N.D. Ill., Eastern Div.) which has been consolidated with Alliance To End Repression v. Rochford, 74 C 3268.

The manual gives special acknowledgement to Robert J. Vollen, Richard M. Gutman, Constance Glass, David M. Hamlin, Lois Lipton Kraft, Margaret Winter, and Morton Halperin, and states:

We particularly want to acknowledge the continuous assistance and information exchange with the Political Rights Defense Fund (Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney General) and the Project on National Security and Civil Liberties (which is pursuing several lawsuits).